Moonshield
by Exoducy
Summary: "A hero grows slowly and waits patiently, like the oak; when it is a thousand years old the hero is only the stem, but the fingers are magic, and the hero's finger branches valve over the world and those whose fate you feel on your tips long after."
1. Chapter 1: Helgen, of course

**So, here I am again. Now writing for a totally different fandom. For me it doesn't matter, as long as what you write is swell and true to the matter. **  
><strong>This will be an attempt to take the blatantly repetative things we all have played and experienced, and make it interesting enough to read on. <strong>  
><strong>My OC Dragonborn is especially chosen for this task and it will be interesting to develop her persona. Nothing is decided beforehand.<strong>

**Regarding other characters, I WILL most certainly give more backbone and background to characters that usually are not an obvious chance of study.**  
><strong>The only exception to this "rule" will be Ulfric Stormcloak, Alduin and Ralof (though Ralof not so much in fact).<strong>

**No one needs to worry that I'll drag readers over long combs of quests we already know in our sleep, since my main purpose is building a psychological story which develops characters and their relationships over time. The second most important thing is a realistic render of the lands of Skyrim; her reflection found not in long and boring descriptions of pines and mountain tops but through the eyes of characters and their behavioral patterns.**

**My first task is this chapter, and obviously the hardest - writing all about an escape we know too well and making it good enough. Who decides if i succeed? You decide! Reviews are therefore golden.**

**And of course, Skyrim doesn't belong to me but Bethesda.**

**As always, this is best read in 1/2. **  
><strong>Happy reading!<strong>

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><p><em>Every story begins the same<br>this will too_  
><em>threads of innocent silver<em>  
><em>yet every end that of<em>  
><em>red and blood<em>  
><em>green and peaceful<em>  
><em>black and dead<em>

_Such is the shift_  
><em>of the living<em>  
><em>of the moving<em>  
><em>the loving<em>  
><em>hating<em>

* * *

><p>A thin, transparent fragrance among the stench of unwashed men, a thinness which broke through the conscious mind. Murmur; <em>someone speaking to me or what, where...<em>

"Hey, you."

That fragrance hovered at the nose, fresh as mountain water in a swamp, a very cold swamp. Water... throbbing confusion. Cold, white snow. Razors in the eyes as a sharp sunlight came into its being; _do I know it's really sunlight?_ Blood in the mouth, a cavity tasting iron. _Why can't I answer?_

"You are finally awake!"

Latching onto the voice, the world was forming all around, senses perforating the dullness prick by prick. And then an unmerciful sharpness broke through and brought a shockwave. Presence. Tightly bound hands.

They were three bound men. One to the right, with his mouth covered by a white rag. He was not acknowledging the others, seemingly in a deep rest with open eyelids. Resembling opaque emeralds, his eyes were as easy to read as flat stones.  
>The two in front were dirty, starved. One had a familiar armor, the other one soiled rags flailing around aimlessly over his starved body, as if they were considering to fly away.<p>

"You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there," the man in the familiar armor said. He was blonde, blue-eyed. His body suggested great strength, but his composure was torn and flimsy, making him no different from the skeletal thief.

An ambush.  
>A small wind blew by and there was that wonderful clean taste in the air. The taste of crystal, if it could be consumed. <em>Ambush.<br>_It was too cold for insects but then there was a blue butterfly flying by. It hovered over the thief's head. He didn't notice it was just that close to landing on his scalp.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," he hissed. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy."

They were all very different but they shared the cart. The same purpose was in the immediate future for them, and the feeling of _something_ hung thick in the mind, along with a stale stench of greasy hair, skin and shit. There was another smell, unpleasant, but not apparent. _Something awaits. _

"If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and be halfway to Hammerfell."

A thief for sure, trying to cross the border with a load of precious loots; maybe it was the horse he wanted. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. _What am I doing here?_

"You there," he said, "You and me – we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants." The Thief's voice had a hint of authority.  
>"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief." the blonde said calmly.<p>

The pattern of stench was broken again by a small trail of purity. Concentration thinned out. Beckoning for sure; the clear surface rose and the sounds were left above that line. A shiver followed after every pure pulse, it was distant but so close. Air was being move, pushed out of its own boundaries somewhere not far from them.  
>"Shut up back there!" the horseman shouted, steering them to nowhere or didn't matter; the odd pressure heavier and at the same time more comforting.<p>

"And what's wrong with him?"

The gagged man looked up to the thief addressing him. "Watch your tongue. You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!" the blonde said.  
>"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm?"<p>

The Jarl's attention lingered to his left as he looked around, and was similarly met. It should have been obvious from the first glance he wasn't one of them, he couldn't be a simple thief; his tunic was something else. His face was well structured and strong; a somewhat aged complexion, but finely chiseled out. Yet there was something with which he matted his glance with, deliberately; even the eyes that stood out against the gray apparel had a thin veil of _something_.

"You're the... leader of the rebellion," the thief said and his eyes began to wander around.  
>Then they stopped, widening at a dark brown spot on the planks of the cartwheel. "But if they've captured you..." he whispered. "Oh gods... where are they taking us?" his voice a violently unwinding coil.<br>"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits." the blonde said.  
>He had never been caught before, always skilled and careful. "No... this can't be happening. This isn't happening..."<p>

"What village are you from, horse thief?"  
>"Why do you care?" the thief spat. He was not supposed to be here. He had nothing to do with this. The Stormcloak and his Jarl were the only ones at fault. It was not his failure. The gods must have forgotten him. Surely they would save him soon.<br>"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."  
>"Rorikstead. I'm... I'm from Rorikstead."<p>

The pulse returned, so powerfully tender, like drowning in a sea of the softest cotton. The three's faces became one, words a kaleidoscope somewhere far above a heavy sea of silk. There was harsh calling, there would be a headsman and a general, and someone was calling for gods, whimpering, "Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareh, Akatosh, Divines, please help me."

There was talk of some beverage, which was strange since headsmen had nothing to do with festivities.  
>"This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in."<br>"Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?"  
>"You need to go inside little cub."<br>"Why? I want to watch the soldiers!"  
>"Inside the house. Now!"<br>"Get these prisoners out of the cart. Move it!"  
>"Why are we stopping?"<br>"Why do you think? End of the line."  
>"Let's go. Shouldn't keep the gods waiting for us."<br>"No, wait! We're not rebels!"

At one point the world peaked back; "Face your death with some courage thief," but then it sunk, and blurred, and sunk more and more and heavier, until all colors were one; a mighty forceful wave.

"You've got to tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!"

"Step towards the block when we call your name. One at a time."  
>"Empire loves their damn lists"<br>"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm!"  
>"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric."<br>"Ralof of Riverwood."  
>"Lokir of Rorikstead."<p>

Someone was running in the distance, running and yelling and falling in a blur; not even close to become a dot at the distance but abruptly erased from the world.

And then, a short question which stopped the flow, "Who are you?"

Eyes converged their attention to one sole point. The pulse dissolved, stench returned. They must have thought that someone could save them; it would not end here even though nothing could be done or should have been done that day, since it was not the Stormcloaks nor their gray leader, no one could be better suited than the last of two outsiders. Of course someone could have been their salvation; now there was one left.

"Once more, who are you?"

_Who am I supposed to be?  
><em>Following the outlines of the frame, cupping the hands, stroking through the long untidy hair, straws rigid like harts; she gripped for things like a newborn.  
>She sensed there was an age upon her. She was not a child, but too young to die.<br>A name was supposed to belong to her as well. It was crucial. Quickly now. She might die if there was no name.

"Human," the man with the list was searching the paper in his hand, "Female." Turning it over and over again, he saw that the number of prisoners were not adding up correctly. A heavy armored, middle-aged female lost her temper. "Slut," she sighed. "A petty whore to starved rebel scum. Wasn't she found stark naked? Pathetic."

It was a barely audible creaking when her cords began to vibrate. Her throat gurgled violently and stale old blood came out in clumps. She coughed, she tried composing herself, "I'm s-so s-s-s-so-orry," but they moved away not to get their uniforms soiled and wrinkled their faces in disgust, moving away until she finally got the brown blood out."Unt."  
>"Pardon?"<br>"I'm Unt," she said.  
>"You are a long way from the Imperial City," the man with the list said. "What are you doing in Skyrim?"<p>

Unt couldn't answer. She didn't know. Maybe someone else did. Maybe she should be the one to question the man with the list about this. Her true name should be there, written in black ink, and then she could be free.

"Captain, what should we do?" the man with the list said to the middle-aged woman, "She's not on the list."

"Forget the list. She goes to the block."

"... make sure your remains..."  
>Revolting weakness washed over her and the world drowned in humming blurry. She tried fighting her way out, flailing her arms furiously, slowly; constrained by a the grip of a single strong hand she was led away. She didn't know why she was moving on her own, the grip on her wrists that of iron, but Unt followed the Captain until they stopped. At an arm's length to the left was the Jarl, but a gray shape. He floated around in the air, unsteady from one corner to the other of Unt's sockets.<br>"Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero," he said. "But a hero doesn't use a power like the voice to murder his king and usurp his throne. You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down... and restore the peace."

This time the dive was the deepest yet. A profound vibration shook the ground and her bones were humming in pain. Something was imploding upon her skeletal core. She thought it sounded as if the air itself had begun to spoke and cry furiously; Unt was pushed down, _no one have noticed, help, help_. At one particular time she saw herself decapitated, her head rolling in the mud. It must have been a dream, she thought, because when Unt came to her senses flames licked her skin and she heard her own distant cry of surprise as the blonde's face was in her own, terrorized, beckoning, his mouth parting rapidly, tongue licking black smear from his lips.  
>"Hey you! Come on, get up! The Gods won't give us another chance!"<br>Unt tried looking around, stressed by the feeling she had been away for a long time.  
>"This way," the blonde shouted, and Unt watched him dart away. Every time she had come back from the deep falls it felt like the world was there for the first time.<br>Unt followed him, running as fast as she could. She fell at the steps, almost to the door; several times she tried rising on her sore elbows, until the blonde's fleshy arm dragged her inside.

There was turmoil and panic even when barred doors. Two were hurt, moaning. Unt glimpsed the Jarl. His eyes had changed, he was shouting to the blonde while holding one of the hurt on the belly. Some kind of orders and pleas were being exchanged, and she felt herself dragged upwards, the arch of her hip bumping and splitting with pain at every step.  
>"Fuck," someone shouted, and then she was embraced right before a shocking, screaming heat violated skin.<p>

"See the inn on the other side?" Unt was forced to rise with a hurtful yank. "Jump through the roof, and keep going!"

Unt landed; distant legs carried her up and forward. She leaped towards the hole in the floor, and slipped. She tried grabbing something to steady her unbending body with, feeling as flexible as a heavy log. There was nothing to grab. _This is it_, she thought. _I die now, _Unt thought as she hit the back of her head hard on the wooden floor, eyes bulging from the pain. And then she heard the furious shriek; through a hole in the roof, through dust and particles dancing in the column of light, there was a flash of a mad eye.

The dragon was circling in the sky, searing the living until their skin separated from the brows and cheeks like a waterfall of meat, and turning the most savaged bodies into charred flesh. A soldier stepped on and over a leg turned to coal, smashing it into dust, swirling in the air, suddenly exploding in a million tiny sparks. It was beautiful, Unt thought. The dragon was beautiful. She could remain here, waiting until the dragon's breath found her; everyone were going to burn dead anyway.

Yet Unt found herself creeping, deliberately letting go of her weight to fall through the second floor to the ground, immobilized by pain after pain after pain; "What are you doing, what," the blonde said as he scooped her up and carried her among the rubble. "Do you want to die, girl?"  
>Her eyes fell upon the sky again, where the spiky black shadow circled, screaming in anger. "I want to go home," Unt whispered as the colors blurred together. The sky was hugging her, finally. "Home, home, home, home."<p>

To the light, in the dark. From searing heat to sweat. Up, and down, and the around until dark became the up and true. She awoke in the shadow of a corner, the blonde stroking her brow free of thick, black sweat.

"Hey, you!" he said, wiping the stickiness on his knees.

For a short while they would be safe, he told her. He said there was a key to be found and that she should wait here and don't move.

"Looks like we're the only ones who made it," he said, fiddling with the straps of a belt. He slid an axe down his side. "That thing was a dragon... no doubt. Just like the children's stories and the legends. The harbingers of the... End Times."

Unt watched him rise."I'm going to be right here, if someone bangs the door, call me but stay hidden," he instructed.  
>It took a while, but he returned successfully. "I found the key. Are you well enough?"<br>He begun dressing her without getting answered. First he struggled with keeping her arms up and then realized he could ask her to hold them straight. Unt held them straight as a scarecrow's stick arms, still silent. She felt cold mail sliding down on her, like an iron dress. It made her feel better. He put her in a large quilted tunic which looked like a sack on her, and strapped a leather belt around her waist. Then he carefully held his arms out towards her, with an axe in them. Unt had never held a weapon in her short, fifteen-minute life, but the blonde placed a wooden handle in her slack hand, closing her fingers around it. It wasn't a question.

"We need to get on," he said. "Likely we'll encounter Imperials... you know who they are and what they look like. Tell me how they look."  
>Unt nodded at first, several times, before she saw her error and started speaking very slowly. "Red shirts. Brown leather over the shirts."<br>The metal in her hand was gleaming. "Just swing and let it fall on its own for now," the blonde sighed. His voice was coiled with exhaustion and worry. Unt shifted the weight, reflecting a stray bundle of light on the blade which caught her in the eye. She was a burden to him, Unt realised. "Let's go," she said. "Let's go."

"Are you sure?" the blonde said surprised.

"Let's go, please. Please, I want to leave."

Before Unt was thrown a looted bow she had been stiff and frozen in terror at the sheer weight of swinging the weapon; small sounds of detached wonder for every blow that either nearly killed her as she fell, or the blows she accidentally planted in the backs of nameless men and women. She had no skill but was saved by the initial reaction of the persons seeing her wield a weapon, and her reaction to their caution. One time, the blonde had missed such a chance and Unt took a severe blow in her shoulder, stupidly watching the red thickness flooding out. In the storeroom, she gulped down an entire potion and lay down.

"I want to stay and die here," Unt said. In the future she would die anywyay; she knew.

"We go on," the blonde said.

When Unt got the bow, she moved along the walls thin and nervous like an unpredictable shadow of a flickering torch, hiding in every dark corner of each new room, dungeon and corridor they passed.  
>And from the corners, her shots rarely failed to kill, to both their surprise. Every time the blonde took on more than tree Unt made sure to keep his back alive and heaving, because planting an arrow deep in the flesh and soft lives of the others would keep her alive as well.<p>

In a prison chamber, the air stale with the smell of human death, flesh and torture, she managed to pick a lock. "A spell book," the blonde said, urging her to get it while they could.  
>To read, they barged the doors heavily in case more enemies would come. The blonde didn't succeed, neither did Unt. "I don't understand," she said, falling in a heap on the floor, tracing rough stone and soft moss in the valleys of the cobble through sticky and thick sight. She had an arrow piercing her palm which he broke off. "Can I die here?" Unt asked.<p>

"Take the book with you."

* * *

><p>Their bodies were licking the wall, drenched in sweat. Every time the wooden stump of the arrow notched the rough stone, she made a small sound of composed, head-splitting pain. Unt threw a gaze back at the sleeping she-bear.<p>

They had left the crumbling tower a long while ago, crimson red and covered in blood of their own and the never known. In the cave there was a stream and they sat down briefly to wash their faces.  
>"Hey you. Eat this carrot. Don't drink the water. It carries a smell of rotten flesh."<br>Unt studied the vegetable carefully. "Go on and take a bite," the blonde urged.  
>She looked him in the eye as she brought down her teeth, and inhaled sharply at the sensation of food; choking and coughing."Chew," he said.<p>

She had been too loud, the echoes traveling vastly along the stony crevices. Unt sat with her mouth open; a grumbling roar echoed back.

"Bear, be quiet!" he whispered. Flat on the belly, he slid along the dirt and saw the bear returning to rest. "We will sneak by it. Together."

Hard and bright were the shapes of light and shadow, and the tunnel narrowed at last. The bear hadn't even flinched. _Maybe it can't taste our sweat after all_, Unt thought, almost hoping to live.  
>Abruptly, the blonde thrust himself off the wall and started limping ahead of her own dragging feet. "That looks like the way out... I knew we'd make it!"<br>They stumbled out, clinging heavily to the grounds, the walls, any kind of structure; grasping themselves and each other. _Dying_, she thought, tumbling again face down, dragged down at a furious sound. _Dying because we took a wrong turn and drowned or were eaten by the spiders or the bear_. The ground vibrated and her skeleton seemed to shift inside of her like before; d_eath_, Unt thought.

But the clouds sailed their light blue sea earnestly as she found the will to turn on her back once the air quieted, menace disappearing, smaller and smaller among sharp snowy mountains. They were outside and the flying death was gone; outlines of land stating the border where the dragon vanished and the day formed around her senses. A faint chirp of birds, the smell of grass and pines and water. "We're out," the blonde laughed weakly, coughing and coughing, "Out..."

Unt lay still for a long time, listening to the sound of their lives.

They must have gone through a very long underground structure, because there was no snow here. It was warmer, more alive. Unt buried her nails in the soft earth, brought the fingers to her nose and took many breaths, and many more, until she believed in life._  
><em>

"Do you have a name?" she asked.  
>"Ralof," the blonde replied. "This isn't over. This place is going to be swarming with Imperials soon enough. We'd better clear out of here," he paused, hesitating. "My sister Gerdur runs the mill up in Riverwood. I'm sure she'd help... you out."<p>

A stirring took her. "Are you going away?" she asked quietly.

"It's probably best if we split up," he said and turned away his head.

"No," Unt said, rising as if on an urgent command, legs shaking, head spinning. Steadying herself on the rock, she touched his shoulder with her pierced hand, offering it to him, flinching as jagged wood notched onto his mail. "I know nothing at all."

He stared. Then he carefully brushed off her hand and inspected it, smearing out pus and pressing around the arrow stump with his thumb, feeling up the hurt. Dropping her hand, his face was composed worry ant Unt saw it was not for her or himself; biting his lip more frantically for every passing silence, following the slight stir of the grass.  
>His mood was grave in the end. "I'll take us to Riverrun."<p>

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><p><strong>R-r-r-rrrrreviews! Om nom nom<strong>


	2. Chapter 2: What was learned in Riverrun

**HEYA!**  
><strong>I'm good to go with a new chapter (I have one reader, yay!) and hope it will serve you and the fandom well and raise anticipations. <strong>  
><strong>Unt will not develop fast as a character, but she will not end undone and pale. I have massive plans for her, and hope more readers will join to love, criticize and cry over my strange fiction.<strong>

* * *

><p>Unt had discovered some things about Skyrim and her people on her first morning.<p>

They washed in the fresh streams summer and winter. They had a foul soap to aid; "Ox bile," she was told by a woman named Camilla. "Kills the germs."

Camilla had a heart-shaped face and dark brown hair and she helped Unt wash herself.  
>"I was a handmaid," she told Unt.<br>Unt didn't know what that meant. "Does a handmaid keep your hand out when you are hurt, like you are keeping my hand out of way?" she asked. Camilla got a look on her face that one may get when stepping in dung on a bad day. "A hand maid serves the palace ladies and dresses nicely and eats plenty of good food."  
>Unt had wondered why Camilla wasn't in a palace now, but kneeling and washing a stranger, and hesitated; the hands scrubbing her lower arm were moving snappily and the amber eyes were kept down, avoiding chat and in particular the left side of her face. When Camilla accidentally lingered with her eyes and became aware, she quickly averted her attention to the sawmill where a villager loaded log after log, wiping the sweat of his brow with a dirty sleeve; the flecks of the same color as his skin. Light brown.<p>

The sons and daughters of Skyrim, _where I am_, liked cheese wheels and mead above all. Their furry cows didn't like being touched. Unt didn't know why she knew what a cow was but not what a handmaid or whore did, but she learned to not try petting and warming herself against a cow. "Can you pet a whore?" she asked on her first night at the inn as she was mistaken for one; hands touching her coyly, teeth baring out of smirks and saliva mixing with mead and drooping close to her face. The men were drinking and shouting, and her question sent them heaving out all the air in their lungs of laughter. A stranger answered the question, whispering in her ear with lukewarm gusts.  
>"Why, if she looked like you I'd do more than pet her."<br>The sons of Skyrim liked women.

That evening there had been three strangers in the inn, told apart by their quiet and avoiding manners. Unt was undressing in her room, sitting on her bed when there was a brief knock.  
>"I'm decent," she replied. It was Delphine.<br>She was the one that took Unt inside while she had been unconsciously dragged into the village by Ralof. The innkeeper had been snoring in deep sleep. Delphine rarely slept. She read instead. She knew some things about potions and infected wounds because she read, and had let Unt stay until the morning.  
>"At least you don't smell," Delphine said. She had also been the one to fetch Camilla for Unt. "And your wound is better... a lot better. A fast heal."<p>

"Thank you for helping," Unt said.  
>"No need, I'd do this for anyone. But I know what you've been through, and Ralof told me about the dragon."<br>Delphine was expecting what a lot of the villagers were waiting to hear of, but somehow she was never satisfied with what she heard. "It exists," Unt said, vary of the topic and Delphine's stubborn inquiries.

"You don't seem emotionally stirred by it," Delphine said.  
>"I don't remember much but it's eye and the fire."<br>"But do you know what it means, the dragons?"

She had heard about the End Times the first time from Ralof, the second and third and fiftieth time from the villagers. _The end of what_, Unt had wondered. Tiredness was beginning to lull her mind. The previous day was a distant time; a wet and dark sea visible from a dry and warm place. Delphine sat quiet and tense, much tense like Camilla had been, and Ralof, and his sister Gerdur, and many more, but especially Gerdur had been upset; "You must understand we are terrified," she had said over and over again to Ralof as he was carried home in the morning by Gerdur and her husband. On a stretcher his legs had lain stiff and unmoving like heavy iron.  
>"Many are paralyzed with terror when they see it sweeping down, but you seem too composed after surviving a dragon attack," Delphine said and pinned Unt's eyes to the back of her sockets. She felt as if she was being prepared for something that would carry her away in a strong wind and rip her off in parts that spread too far away to recollect.<br>Nothing happened. There was only a long silence during which Delphine studied her.

"Stay at Gerdur's. We can't keep you here for another night. They will find you if they look."

Out of a pocket, a round and flat wooden object appeared in Delphine's hand.  
>"When I flip this over, you might see the reason why you will be found soon. Do you want to see yourself?"<p>

_Can I really do that?_ Unt thought; her fingers reaching for Delphine's circle, the surface soft and suddenly reflective like water.  
>For a long time she stared at a face she had not even thought about searching for since Helgen, but now it found her instead as she touched her being; mousy colored wisps of straight, bushy hair were hers, the light gray orbs set deep under her brows belonged to her now, and a small childish upturned nose with a scar across the bone; a new feature but an old scar... and there was that mark which was very much hers, more than anything else. <em>I think it's called a tattoo and I haven't seen other with tattoos<em>.  
>"You are fair, your hair is thick and healthy, but that mark will bring you bad things if you linger and that will be the end of it," Delphine said.<p>

Unt sat for a long time retracing the path of the tattoo under and her left eye. It was a simple and straight stroke up from the eye, and two smaller and shorter strokes curving over and away over the elevation of bone. For a pair of simple brushings, they hung massive, decisive.

Unt learned that the sons and daughters of Skyrim were anxious people. Or maybe she had appeared in a bad time.

* * *

><p>Ralof was already walking, limping back and forth along the cooking spit.<p>

"I'd rather not," he said. "But if you must, go to Faendal. The wood elf. Tell him to..."  
>"... stay in the woods," Unt finished. She had recited Ralof's advice many times.<br>Unt packed up her daily things; three grilled leeks and a baked potato, studded leather bracers and a simple leather jerkin. She had angrily tossed the pants given to ger by Gerdur; "I don't like that feel." "Of what?" "Of pants." Her choice was a long linen tunic over bare legs, and simple black boots flapping around small knees. "You are very short for a Nord," Ralof had said.  
>Unt thought it was strange that he knew she was a Nord; "How do you know I am a Nord?" she had asked.<br>"Your eyes are so light and gray they are almost white in the light."

When she finished packing and stood by the door Ralof threw her a key and told her to not come back until it was black night. "And stay away from the road. If they find you they will find me."

Faendal was the kindest villager to speak to her yet, and easy to talk to. He asked Unt about her favourite dishes; "I don't know, but sweet rolls are sweet." "So you remember their taste." "I guess I do." "Where are you from?"  
>Unt couldn't answer a thing about herself because she didn't know anything about herself except that she had seen a dragon, maybe been a whore and almost died some times. Neither of these things interested the wood elf. "I see you don't really need my training," he had said, his voice changing.<br>"Why?" Unt had asked, unwilling to part with Faendal's smiles and stories about nice dishes and starry evenings in the forest.  
>"Try shooting that over there. Ten times, as fast as you can."<br>Naturally, Unt notched, drew and released. There was not a single stray arrow, and one arrow had pierced another in two parts.  
>Unt had recognized a vague satisfaction of aiming.<br>"You have done this before. You might not remember, but your eyes and body does. This is why you survived Helgen and saved Ralof too."  
>Unt wondered if he had asked her about her favourite color because she could aim and shoot and the skill with the bow also was something that belonged to her now.<p>

That night Faendal had followed her back to Ralof and asked Unt to fetch him. He came out together with Gerdur, grumpy and paranoid under a hooded face and dark clothing. They were not happy to be awake at the late hour. The moon was high and in the distance wolves were howling.

"She has been an archer before. I have seen it myself."  
>Ralof grunted and sounded impatient. "I told you, she was naked. Naked when we were caught," he insisted. Gerdur said something about the Stormcloaks and Whiterun and the silence following was long, during which Unt wondered all the time what would happen to her and where she was sent to. Maybe they would sell her, or just ask her to go away and never show up again. The dark grew colder and colder while the villagers stood in silence watching each other, Unt felt isolated, like an acorn dropped on a stone where her hopes never would sprout or rise; dropped on a bad time in a cold place where spring was too far away and the moving streams of water had frozen.<br>"Travel to Windhelm," Faendal said.  
>"No," Unt squeaked.<br>"Listen." No." "Listen, we are trying to help." "No." "Listen," and then Ralof broke "There is no one else who could do this but you."  
>Unt silenced. "Do what?"<p>

Nords admired courage however hopless or stupid it might be, Unt learned; but she was sure admiration was not for her.

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><p>Long shadows were stretching from the spaces in the fence. There was moonlight and a crystal clear air, smelling very good. Someone was holding her hand, engulfed in warmth and wrinkled skin.<p>

"Don't stray."

"I wont!"  
>Soon the terrain changed. She was panting, running over larger and larger rocks which took her higher up. There was no end to the panting and running, there would be a place somewhere among the highness, and it was to be found. Since a while ago, the promise to stay close was forgotten, and she heard distant, anguished calls for her name. Yet she never stopped tensing her small and sturdy legs, stronger for every leap, clasping tighter on the sharp rocky outlines for every little slip that sent her falling on her back. Back up, the rise seemed longer and more endless the longer time it took and the more she rose from the slips; a slight tip and fall of the peak, it was there waiting, distant chunky stones of the circle casting sharp shadows against the moon.<br>_I wonder what that is_, she thought.  
>Then the fingers started clawing her back, long and black nails tearing at her clothes; screaming she held on to a stone, climbing and climbing while the horror behind wedged a nightmare between her muscles and vessels and begun to search inside her, warm liquid running down her back. <em>Go away<em>, she cried. _Leave me alone_, she pledged.  
>Enraged by her strength, the claws let her go and buried in her navel as skeletal arms embraced her; skin like rotten corpses. She was afraid to look at her insides gushing out as the horrors teared and teared and licked at her neck with cold wet tongues. Continuing to climb, she heard her name far away and she mimicked the sound, calling her own name while crying and tearing her belly for every step she continued to carry the clasping hands and killing weight.<br>Finally, she knew the peak was there as it rose and even out under her exploding feet. Aching, she fell to the ground to crawl the last part, _the circle is so close. _The shadows fell upon her face, flickering and confusing and consuming her strength at last. She felt the smooth surface of a first touch of the large circle, and awoke panting and fearful.  
><em>My insides have not spilled<em>, Unt thought in a relief; lifting the hem of her tunic, inspecting her body. The ache persisted through the rest of the morning.

"You look very pale," Gerdur commented as she prepared a traveling satchel for Unt, leeks stickig out of the floppy lid. "Has blood left you?"

"My blood?"  
>"Do you have your moon bleeding?" Gerdur asked.<br>"No," said Unt and had a vague reminiscence of such things happening. She realised she hated it. "I hate it," she said.  
>"So you remember the sensation and pain," Gerdur smiled weekly. "You look like a girl but most certainly you are a woman grown."<p>

Gerdur's husband Hod might have been listening too much, and Unt's face flushed at the thought of him hearing such things as she saw him waiting behind a corner. Ralof was still asleep in the same room where all their beds were crammed, humming and snoring loudly in his sleep. Unt had shared a bed with Gerdur and her son, the kid suffocating between them of the heat and sweat and the tight space, while Hod barely had been able to stay on the same bed as Ralof, rolling out with dull thumps during the night.  
>She had been watching the family for an entire night, feeling a strange kind of sadness at the thought of leaving. She would be left on her own, and even though only Faendal had been warm with his words and company, Gerdur and her husband Hod had helped her. And Ralof had carried her here. "I hope to see you in Windhelm," he had said and sounded warm for the first time before they bid goodnight.<br>As she fell asleep, the Jarl's eyes appeared behind her lids. They were as stony and opaque as they had been in the cart. She was not sure if she had begun dreaming, but they turned towards her and his irises were burning emeralds when they watched her. Somehow Ralof knew that Jarl Ulfric had survived, or maybe he simply hoped.  
>For some, Stormcloaks were a deeper hope, Unt learned.<p>

Before she left, she thanked Gerdur three times and heaved a secretly stored sack with raw meat from under Gerdur's bed. "I shot the game myself," Unt said and hoped that she had thanked properly with this. Faendal had showed her how to skin and preserve the animals.  
>Outside, the morning bore a crisp fog in it's womb. Hod was walking a little ahead of her, silently and hurrying her forward. Her plain longbow and quiver made soft rustling sounds which echoed along the sleeping houses. Even though she had a message to deliver to the Jarl of Whiterun, Unt was forced to realize the whole village save for Faendal recognized her as a potential danger and needed to send her away.<br>Hod stopped under the village arch.  
>"It's time," he said.<br>Unt thanked him and begun to walk past him, _he is watching me leave to be sure I really go away, _and she walked quicker and quicker, knowing that Whiterun wasn't far and she would make there soon and safe. There she could find work and maybe stay. She could push away the sad feeling of being thrown out as soon as she showed skill with the bow; "You are adept enough to fight," they had concluded.  
>While she walked on Riverwood would disappear out of sight fast enough, meaning she could be by herself, meaning she would need find food alone and sleep alone in shacks and trees, never knowing who she had been or gone and where she was supposed to go.<br>There was hard running behind her and a hand on her shoulder.  
>"I should have given this to you sooner, but I... I didn't know for sure."<p>

Hod was holding the tiniest pouch she had ever seen, tilting to drop it in her hands. "What's this?" Unt asked, fiddling it from the outside. She felt a prolonged shape the size of her thumb and cold hard surface.  
>"When I was younger, an old man visited Riverwood. He had a child with him. She had no mark on her face but her eyes were the same as yours."<br>Unt's mouth was slightly open in wonder. Hod chuckled. "Alvor and his mindlessness... I can't believe he didn't remember you the night at the inn. The girl who came by with the old one forgot her pendant at the village forge, which Alvor runs. He even showed you some tricks with a blade."

Before they parted, Unt asked if Nords had a good memory. "I don't know," Hod said. "I remebered you. Good luck, and Talos be with you."

Unt learned that Nords never forgot the eyes of another human once they were seen twice.

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><p><strong>*Busy nomming reviews*<strong>


	3. Chapter 3: A loyal courier

**Third chapter, and I have no idea if it ever will be read. If YOU are reading this, please stop by the review section. Even if you are bad at giving critique, a simple "3/5" or "1/5" will tell me something.**

**This chaper will conclude the obligatory "escape Helgen and discover supah-powers"-episodes, and from here the story will go 100% as I (and readers!) please.  
><strong>**Enjoy.**

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><p><em>My duality awakes<br>__By midnight time I could not see,  
><em>_If I were you or you were me_

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><p>Whiterun was poised on an elevation of the land as if it was an oasis in the sky, with the most exquisite archway rising to the peak; Unt losing herself in the sloping shapes, higher and higher. Sun radiated off light wood, embossing the dust and smoke between the houses with glow. Around and beneath the lofty shimmer lay flat and spacious steppes; mossy sheets, the kind of plain wild animals galloped softly on, where mammoths wandered freely, herded by giants, but treated better than human cattle. A plain untainted by snow or cold or blinding whiteness, which she remembered from <em>only two days ago.<em>

Beheaded farm animals and fresh meats of their bodies were carried around the market, juices and blood yet dripping. Whiterun was a hill of life, a trickle of water from small lively channels and sewers. An elder woman was reading a palm. The client was a young man with a lute. A very beautiful woman was selling vegetables with a girl tucking her skirt, standing on her toes to whisper something.  
>"Dragonsreach, you mean? Cloud district. Just follow the steps, go around the Gildergreen with the shrine of Talos on your right and then continue up the steps."<p>

"The Gildergreen?" Unt asked, without thinking, her eyes absorbing the most luscious sight of trading and living and chatting she had ever seen.  
>The dark-skinned mercenary stared. "Are you sane? You walk well like a stranger here, but you've never even heard of it?"<br>The little girl and her mother had quieted and were watching Unt.

Of course the tree would have been famous. No leaves were born on it, but the gray stem was smooth and elegant and stood in the center of a circular plaza. The village was obviously built around the tree.  
>"I have heard of it," Unt tried. She felt careless and a bit afraid. She had made a mistake. "I forgot the name."<br>Dark, bottomless orbs were lingering at her face, slightly turned upwards; Unt's blood was beating hard insider her. This man was hard to read. Everyone but Faendal had been like walls. "Ever been to Hammerfell?"  
>"Why?" Unt asked with a slight unease. He was watching her brow. <em>Does he recognize me? Has word reached around?<em>

"That tattoo-"  
>His brows knitted as she bid a short goodbye and hurried on, slowly at first but then faster and faster until her tibia hurt from the strain. Unt wanted to turn her head to see if his face had a look of perception. Pearls of sweat joined in her armpits and Unt almost hit several people while dampness grew into streams on her skin; "Watch it!" they shouted. "Careful!"<br>Streams begun to trickle and the sweat grew hot and fearful, Unt was ascending the steps very fast. The guards' eyes were turning after her but they did not bother to follow her or stop her; maybe they knew that she would not be let in easily once at the gate to Dragonsreach. Maybe they knew something about her and would snicker, waiting as she led herself into a trap or danger of some kind.

But none stood guard outside the massive wooden gate. It was a piece of art to watch and touch; laying her healthy palm on it, smooth as polished stone and not a single angry splinter biting Unt's bare hand. Her other hand was bandaged and still throbbing. She forgot about the urgencies for a while and let herself sink into a fine rest, remembering the cold of death and the warmth of a bed, eyes of steel and eyes of stone.  
>Someone was shouting downhill. A guard was taking up pace, shouting, returning to his post which was where Unt stood now with a look of an intruder.<br>It took all the force she could squeeze through her tiny frame to open the gate; leaning and pushing with her right side until it all swung hard and she fell inside.

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><p>Three hours later Unt was invited to a dining room behind the main hall.<br>She had succeeded in delivering the message which Riverwood entrusted her; information about the first dragon sighted since forever ago, doing mayhem and flying away, and while she spoke a feeling heavier by every delivered word appeared, _where will I go when I'm done?  
><em>But in the middle of taking a free meal in the kitchen, a report had come.

They gathered in a circle; all but the Jarl with weak hanging necks and heavy heads. The Jarl and the woman which never left her eyes from Unt, as if she was a resting dragon, or as if the dragon reported being very close to the city would burst from the mark in her face, held their heads high and proud.  
>"I will not stand idly by while a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people!" he had shrieked in an almost silly pitch; the woman with the dark skin and skewed, mean eyes nodding back and forth with her head, turning to every courtsman and expecting a return of her nod, loyalty and bravery. "I've already ordered my men to muster at the gate," she said before she darted away; "Don't worry my lord, I am the very soul of cautious," a last glance at Unt before she disappeared down the stairs, disapproving and suspicious.<p>

"You survived Helgen, so you have more experience with dragons than anyone else here," said Jarl Baalgruf the Great, a name which was always fully pronounced by his court whenever spoken. Jarl Ulfric had been called Jarl Ulfric. Jarl Baalgruf had five different pelts on his shoulders and sleeves, a costly headpiece of a red ruby and two green emeralds, and he liked to slowly brush his hair back, fingers lingering, whenever he paused to raise his chin some more. He did so, as a darkly robed and hooded man, all clad and veiled in ashy blue, stepped up close, expecting him to address his Jarl Baalgruf the Great.  
>Instead, he turned to Unt and asked for her hand. Swiftly, he unwound the bandage and bent closer to the fleshy center. "Not bad," he said. "But I'd tie you a new bandage, if you permit?"<br>Unt nodded.  
>"Farengar," Jarl Baalgruf said to the blue man.<br>"My Jarl, Balgruuf the Great," the blue man Farengar replied, concentrated on his work, retrieving a very smooth and light cloth from a satchel, wrapping it firmly around Unt's hand. "I should come along. I would very much like to see this dragon."  
>Farengar glanced up at Unt's brow at one time. When he looked down again she could have sworn the corners of his mouth were skipping like a playing rope, rising and falling and rising, as if he couldn't stop smiling but tried hard. <em>Is it ugly?<em> _The tattoo? _she had liked to ask, but remained quiet.  
>"I can't afford to risk both of you," the Jarl decided. "I need you here, working on ways to defend the city against these dragons."<br>Farengar finished with a peculiar knot. "Of course, My Jarl."  
>Jarl Baalgruf turned to Unt, an authoritative and shrewd composure on his features, <em>I don't know what sly is but I know this feature, I know it, <em>she thought.  
>"My friend, I need your help one more time. I want you to go with Irileth and help her fight this dragon."<p>

* * *

><p>"The glory of killing it is ours, if you are with me!" Irileth the housecarl, had shouted, those skewed eyes never looking at Unt but at her soldiers; heroically, like the most seasoned of dragon slayers.<br>But there was less glory in the men that caught fire, sprinting and running, hoping to stick with their needles at the dragon which toyed them like sacks of flour and cabbage, tossing them to hit the ground in writhing pain, less glory than crouching, like Unt did, squatting with a dry mouth and petrified limbs behind a slight hill with a stone.  
>Squatting, and remembering that if she ran as far as she could out into the wild they would all remember her; her eyes, like Nords do, if she ever came back. She was more afraid of this than death roaming the sky. Shame made her raise her bow from the safe place to the sky, following the circles and falls the dragon made, but emptiness prevented her to release the drawed string. She knew it longed to sing at the release, sing and kill, because it would bury itself in the scales every time she let go, but she couldn't. Unt had recognized this sensation early enough to believe Faendal, "You have done this before," he had said. She followed the invisible, random trails of the dragon's flight, like smoke from all the burning whirling about.<em> I have done this many times before <em>Unt repeated; the sole thing she knew about a life that had gone in the same instance it overlapped with the awakening in a cart of death. She had forgotten about dreams and what they were and woken from her last in blackness, in sweat, and all things horrid and as real as the sounds of sleeping humans around her, not knowing for sure what was real and what was imagination.  
>It had continued, a void inside the place where her fire was, where she <em>almost<em> could grasp a calloused old hand, a wrinkled smile, a juniper berry floating around in mead as a warm chuckle cheering on her very first taste, charred skeever over a fire in the wild. Things that _almost_ came to her like small insects when she turned stones to look for food, but so many, and so fast that even one insect was hard to grasp. Everything was connected, a hum and movement of tightly sealed prickles of ants and particles, fleeing a small hungry girl's hand, hungry, searching, looking... where, _where?_

The shouts. Unt had not understood how they could rise from the earth itself until she saw the dragon drawing it's breath, like it was preparing to dive into a bottomless ocean. Words were sending her back between blur and sharpness and drowning her in pure heat, syllables tangling her feet, pulling her deeper and deeper into the _beautiful burning_ compartment, where more weeds and fiery flowers sprouted from her temples and crevices, filling her lungs and her nose, her chest heaving only to listen with her ears closed so that the pressure would not crush her head flat while she watched the dancing and shifting strings, so that her ears didn't drown in blood and _those words, please stop, stop, stop, stop!  
><em>A melody had filled the void. Snapping like the string, arms and spine trembling with a force sure as death by the release of her bow, Unt found herself rising, standing, closing in on the ruined watchtower, "No!" she heard, smoke and debris scattered, heat like lapping tongues. Irileth was alive but with blotchy whitened patches over her face, her armor clad with frost. Some yellow-draped guards and soldiers were coming onto the now landed dragon like waves, back and forth they danced, picking with their swords one time and then back, one time and then back.

They all saw her running, Irilieth mad with anger, shouting and threatening her with muffled cries as Unt broke through the lines and notched, a few feet from the dragon.  
>As she drew the bow its tail twisted, shoving down men like the lightest straw dummies, crawling towards her with orange flickers glistening on claws and sharp scales. Her scapulas came to a brief stop.<br>When she felt the iron glove bury in her shoulder the arrow was already flying, spiraling happily, lightly.

_Mir_  
><em>Mirm<em>  
><em>... nir<em>

_Mirmulnir _

The end was a brief caress, a deep stream of bones, water; tiny fragments of skin dissolving in a golden stream of vacuum_._ Sorrow_._

* * *

><p>Excited whispers rose up the stone walls; "Dragonborn."<br>"No doubt."  
>"My brother saw it with his own eyes."<br>"But how can...?"  
>"... dragonborn, I tell you!"<p>

In an instant he wrote letters of condolence. In the pauses, the bin was full of paper balls, of which some Ulfric aimed at the hearth, before furiously gripping the pen, and stopping after the few written words, never knowing how to unwrite guilt from himself.

He had begun planning for a host to find and retrieve the lost from Helgen, dead and alive, maybe sheltered in abandoned shacks; not for long if they weren't quick enough, when news came of a dragon attack near Whiterun. Three horsed couriers had been sent in the midst of chaos, one came.  
>His officer Galmar, unmoved by most, had parted his mouth slightly in surprise when he heard that the city stood, but not the dragon. Ulfric hadn't seen this expression for a long time, not since the officer had felt Solitude shake of the voice that sent the High King Torygg to Sovngarde.<br>"A dragonborn," he said, turning to Ulfric, in poorly contained and childish awe, not realizing the true preface of complications.

Ulfric had barely slept since escaping Helgen. It had been three cold nights under the sky, from left to right and over again, and as soon as he greeted his joyous court only an hour ago he was set on writing these letters to wives and husbands and families. The End times had already come to him in the frosty dawn of today, he felt, flakes shimmering too sharply in his swollen eyes; the end times of his flawless plans, a bit of fear in him as well, which made him slow and nervous. He made sure that no one noticed, and no one did. He felt something among people as soon as he had entered the city gates, in the walls and the matted rays of sunset; he absorbed it all and reflected nothing. All light seemed to have shred color. His mind dulled with a nagging worry that annoyed him more than worried; he couldn't continue to lead a rebellion when even one of his men lay starving or dying in a forest; if not already dead, a burned and twisted corpse among Imperials and faithless in Helgen. Had he done the right thing? he wondered. Would father do the same?

He had dropped everything then, demanding preparation for a private counseling in one of the guest rooms close to his chamber.

"No food," Ulfric said as he parted with the courier and the courtsmen and the kitchen maids, the cleaners and a few guards; crestfallen but curious. "It's already evening."  
>His strong hands rolled up maps, swept down red and blue little flags, and asked the confused to leave twice; crowding the door, moving too slowly. "Leave, now!"<br>Minutes later, a handful of carefully chosen men were facing him. Behind a brazier was burning, the edges of his ancestral wolf pelt stroked red hot.  
>He took his moment to pace back and forth, wanting the men to see this decision was not easy to made; but his feet were steady and definite on the floor and he knew they saw him nothing short of steel, strong and unflinching. They saw only will.<br>"We find this Dragonborn, " Ulfric said. "We find this key to victory, and we take back what is ours."  
><em>Thump, thump, thump<em> his boots said. _Thu-thump_, as he turned and his heart took up pace.  
>"Are there reports on the description of this Dragonborn?" he asked.<br>His closest friend and the steward at the palace unfolded a hastily scribbled note. Very few words were written on it, in all haste.  
>Ulfric knew what it meant. The third courier hadn't been paranoid, entering the palace shrouded in linen and leather jerkin, concealed by a cowl, for nothing. He was not supposed to be here. He was supposed to be on his way to Solitude, or Markarth, or an other nest of Imperials. Maybe he wasn't supposed to live, and he wouldn't if he had spoken a word, but he gave only the note to the steward and a dead silence, never uttering a single word, and that made all the difference in Ulfric's new plan.<br>"There are two words written here," steward Jorleif said.

Nothing could have prepared his reaction, halting his strut, eyes widening, forgetting himself for a second. In an instant, his knuckles turning white, he altered the plans and promised there would be grave consequences if any of his men failed.  
>"With white eyes and a mark on her face," he said. "Tomorrow night I shall have her."<p>

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><p><strong>OH MY.<strong>

**Already working on chapter four. **  
><strong>These three chapters have been the real challenge; now begins the fun. <strong>


	4. Chapter 4: The crow, the owl, the dove

**Chapter four.  
>Writing on.<br>... someone there?  
>If you are here, say hi! I don't really need reviews as much as a "Hi, I am skimming through this mess, contemplating to read."<strong>

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><p>Farengar told her she had been brought in by a very silent Irileth; her limp arms flailing around in the heavy rhythm of the dunmer's steps; doe eyes.<br>"Is that a good thing?" Unt had asked him, and he had said that it was, glancing on her scar all the time. "A good thing that she didn't leave you."  
>From the window in the small sickroom she could see eight torches forming a circle, burning brighter, larger than the rest in the dark evening.<p>

Unt was free to go whenever she had the strength, but Farengar had asked for her as soon as she could muster it to walk normally. Jarl Baalgruf the Great led her there himself and told her he was very grateful for all she had done. They had lost eight men he said, when Unt asked about the soldiers.  
><em>Mirmulnir<em>, she thought, deadening the chat, as they strolled slowly under the arches of the main hall, and felt sadness hang over her like the spiders that hung down from the vaults.

"You are granted Breezehome here, a fine house, fit for a thane," Jarl Baalgruf said, but she didn't look different than before as she had looked into a glass on the wall in the sickroom, before a handmaid knocked on the door and told her Farengar was still waiting, and she couldn't hear what the Jarl said while he showed her to the court wizard's study, over the rushing in her ears. Some kind of swarm hhad found housing inside of her. There were no houses granted for the sadness she felt; splinters on a door on the wrong side of the skin, or bees' stings. She wondered where that sadness lead, because everyone cheered, and those who didn't weren't in the streets or the quarters or the Bannered Mare, to where she couldn't know the way.  
>She was a thane now, Jarl Baalgruf explained while they moved, slowing in, which meant that she would have a housecarl, and that would be a very able woman named Lydia, which would guard her with her life and accompany Unt on any project.<p>

Farengar must have heard them, and he appeared out of an opening in the long side of the hall.  
>"Jarl Baalgruf," he said, "Your people and court is expecting your honor speech. I will join shortly, but first..."<br>He bowed to Unt, slightly, but indicatively, sure not to be missed for a nod. "Thane, would you kindly join me in my study?"  
>"Yes," Unt said with a thick and dry voice, the bees in her chest swarming. Jarl Baalgruf was smiling at her as he withdrew. Rushing ahead of her was a title she knew nothing about. It was following the court wizard, entering as she left herself somewhere far ago. <em>Mirmulnir.<em>

He was standing far away from her, thumb brushing his chin, squinting his eyes as he roamed over her small and crouched figure leaning on the enchanting table with one elbow. The mage didn't spoke until Jarl Baalgruf was completely out of sight.  
>"Dragonborn, how did it feel to slay a dragon and absorb it's very being?"<p>

Before she had time to flex her muscles and dart, Farengar was already there, pressing down with a delicate hand on her shoulder, "Stay," he said, and again, and again, driving her to the center where there was a chair. "I heard a chorus seize the sky while you were carried here."  
>Her scarecrow silhouette crooked under an invisible pressure as she was sat down.<br>"Why are you afraid?" Farengar said, "This is wonderful news."  
>Shock and amnesia would be most natural, he continued, walking from left to right in wide turns. "But in between glances you seem not only half aware of what had happened, but also resentful."<br>Killing the beast, with such a close proximity to it's attack range and with minimal chance of succeeding, that arrow had been hers from the sprint to the release; "It really was," he concluded, "'We were frozen with dread when we saw her sprinting mad,' Irileth told me."

Slowly water started to drop, splashing insignificant little floods on the cracks of the stone floor. Unt's neck melted and hung, "Dragonborn?" she hulked with her throat full of formless words; there came more running down, there came four days of sliding around in a world which was covered in a tiny film, the real places somewhere far beyond, she didn't even slide but was pushed in directions due to the movement of others; "I don't even know who I am, how can I be a thane, how can I kill a dragon?" her voice rising and rising.

"I met you once."

The circle that had been suffocating widened, expanding beyond Farengar's study and beyond the ends of his exclamation, filling the valves, spreading even further. Her exhalation was strong and loud. "When?" she asked, rising, stretching, her face close upon his.  
>"Not very long ago," he said and his eyes brushed her forehead.<p>

"You smiled when you bandaged me."  
>"I did," said Farengar and his mouth twitched in the same peculiar manner, corners dancing wickedly, as if he was about to burst out laughing at some jester prancing around Unt, making foul faces and tongues. "Chance is folly."<br>"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Unt said, and begun to rhytmically press the tips of her nails in the soft pillows of her palm. _Is this anger?_ "When? Which day was I here?"  
>"My thane, still your anxiety. One would think I'm an enemy," he said and put his hand on her shoulder again, making her sit down. "I'm not."<br>This time Unt sat and waited, calmer, following the billowing of his robe and hood; moving to pour burgundy wine from a bottle._ What a strange man_. He gave the silver goblet to her; inside the goblet this liquid appeared more black than red when she studied it, sniffing with a wrinkled nose.  
>Farengar lifted a chair and carried it next to hers. He relaxed beside her, swiveling his goblet casually.<br>"Research is what I do," he said. "Naturally, when things make it apparent there is some kind of pattern in a chain of events, I want, and need, to know everything about it. With any tiny detail lost, the whole picture is corrupt."  
>He took a sip of the wine and licked his lips, "You should try it, it's fine,"; dark red residues flowing down the spaces of his teeth like threads in a woven cloth, revolting against the slick enamel, very white and straight. "Now, I would like you to answer that question. How did it feel to absorb Mirmulnir?"<p>

But how? she thought, irritation flexing her fingers, forcing nails into the fleshy base of her fingers until it stung. "How do you know?" she asked, her arms closing over each other, every hair on her head static, when she realized that until now, she had never thought of that sound as a name, but simply a sound.  
>"That's what I ought to ask you," Farengar said, taking another sip. He was watching her just over the edge of the goblet. "Relax."<br>"Was Mirmulnir its name?"  
>"Yes. How did it feel?"<br>"It happened too fast."  
>A short chuckle squirted through Farengar's lips, and with it the smallest drop of wine. "The sorrow you felt must've been crushing," he said and rose to stand in front of her. He leaned in close Unt's ears. "Will it be easier if I say that I know everything you know? There's nothing to be ashamed or afraid of."<p>

She was cornered.  
>"Yes," Unt said, eyes downcast.<br>"So how did it really feel?"  
>"When did you meet me?"<br>"How did it feel?" Farengar repeated, this time stern and demanding.  
>"A universe moved through me, and its shouts came from the earth. I felt a great sorrow. I wish I hadn't killed."<p>

Bursting out in a sudden laughter, he couldn't stop, but started to pull drawers out, toss papers in the air, shoving away books and pens and maps; pinning a pink leather X to a mounted map, and then another, which was red; taking out a very thin and transparent paper Farengar delicately fastened it to the board and started drawing, sloppily copying the paths like snakes and blue lakes, but the result was without major imperfections as he beckoned Unt to come see.  
>"Greybeards have called for you, I am sure of that, because you are probably the Dragonborn, as it is written. I drew a map which will take you to them, to the Greybeards," Farengar said and folded the paper. "The pink X marks the village of Ivarstead, where the seven thousand steps begin."<br>"What is the red X?"  
>His eyes lit up. "The red X is where a very precious thing may be found."<p>

* * *

><p>It stood small and cosy; "Look my thane, how nicely they have decorated!"<br>Unt now shared the typical Whiterun fashioned house with a woman she had met only half an hour ago as they started walking down, together, in silence at first, from the hill of Dragonsreach to a (their) new home, but soon Lydia begun talking and she had an airy voice which enveloped her questions and praises gracefully, and never in the demanding or hungry way others had asked Unt questions, prompting. Lydia never prompted, and she never asked; "Tell me more," she said, or "And then?" and if the little Unt managed to excite her even more she would smile, and then there would be a small moment of simply walking until another thread was picked up from nowhere.

Lydia carried steel armor, a steel sword that almost scraped the ground as she walked, and a wooden shield that was reinforced with steel, too. She was short, but Unt barely reached her shoulder. "Are you a nord, my thane?" Lydia asked.  
>"Yes. Are you not?"<br>"No thane," Lydia answered and a definite silence fell.

Recovering, Unt had dreamed; in shifting ether Ralof was pushing against her from the other side of an ancient stone. Unt tried to shake and displace the block, the blood in her ears a loud rush of heat and strain, and when she fell through it was strange since the stone had not moved, yet she tilted towards a man which had stopped being Ralof and was the Jarl Ulfric she had shared a cart with. His eyes were opaque green marbles that grew and grew and when her forehead reached his she fell through and inside of him like a ghost, his white gag ripped away and flowing down to the ground. Around them greens were swirling and enveloping, it was his eyes, and Unt thought that maybe they had swollen so enormously to see all and know everything there was to know. She took the gag and when she had finished tying the knot behind her own neck, to see what he hadn't, the earth shook; the deep voice emerged from all dimensions at the same time, and from time itself. She turned somewhere and it was no longer the Jarl she faced but the horrors.  
>Again, she was climbing and screaming, knowing how it would feel as claws buried in her fasciae, a slick and wet sound as the muscle compartments were torn apart, like roots bursting through thin milky holes her veins hung out, were clawed, trashed, slick, swaying as she stumbled and <em>oh Talos,<em> there was the peak, the peak.  
>She let her body down and felt the wonderful, accelerating roll over the top, and for every revolution she came closer to the circle, she needed to go there, badly now, and at last she sensed the smoothness and cold surface. Crawling, dragging her body with the might of her tiny arms of a child but this time she reached over the second, the third, the fourth block, the arches of her hipbone stinging in dirt and bruises. When the first emerald light reached her eyes, she had sat up in the bed, wide-eyed, dry in her mouth, frantically turning her head around, searching for the green shimmer.<p>

"What about some grilled leeks with venison?"  
>"Will you teach me how to do it?"<br>"Of course, my thane."  
>The evening in Breezehome went by to the sound of roast and a cracking fire pit as they ate; "For a first try my thane, this is good." It spread warmth and cradled calmness into Unt's soul. "Thane, a little more cardamom dried elves ear's next time, perchance, and it will be delicious!"<br>Unt sat by the fire pit a while after they had finished. She discovered that watching the flames forming shapes was something pleasant. In the same way you could never guess which path the red tongues would flick, Unt couldn't understand that she had acquired four walls and a roof in only a few hours, when she didn't even knew the house, the body, which carried her. _And who am I anyway?_  
>Lydia insisted on cleaning and preparing warm honeyed lingonberry must, so Unt went upstairs.<p>

In a dark looking glass that was almost blank as a mirror, she studied herself for a long time. Leaning in closer, she saw that her iris in fact was white but with dark blue structures encircling the pupil, a thousand tiny fingers stretching to a small black hole, and Unt knew that in this way she differed as well; in other's she had seen the opposite pigmentation. Back and forth she shifted the burning candle until she felt satisfied with the organic movement of an opening and closing of the pupil. She pinched a strand of her very straight ends and ran the fingers until the hairs' last ends, doing so a few times. Then, taking an entire tail of mousy gray, she divided the hair into two equal parts; a tiny portion of the left was carried over to the right, then the opposite with the right portion, braiding, dividing, braiding. When she reached beyond her shoulder she continued braiding it by looking in the glass and the braid grew and grew. When she finished, it reached a whole hand below her waist.  
>"My thane?"<br>Unt jumped and almost swept down the candlestick and the glass. "Lydia?"  
>"The sweets are ready."<p>

In the midst of chewing, making content noises through a mouthful of nuts and honey and wonderfully sweet gooey paste, Unt asked Lydia if she would help her choose an armor.  
>"I need your help," Unt continued, dropping out a small mess on the table through her lips, which made Lydia smile again.<br>"Of course, thane. Where are we going?"  
>"Bleak Falls Barrow."<br>Lydia's gracefully strong hand clasped Unt's wrist and she didn't smile anymore. "You mustn't."  
>"I must pay off this home."<br>"No," said Lydia, an unfamiliar expression on her face. She had changed twice this day.  
>"Are you not allowed there?"<p>

A shadow; sudden and blotched, from somewhere behind, which made Lydia almost fall into the fire pit as she turned around and stumbled from the chair simultaneously, drawing her sword even before Unt had sent her own seat flying across the room; crying out in surprise, a flame from the pit almost setting the bandage on her hurt hand on fire.

The Stormcloak soldier, and Unt saw he was a Stormcloak because of the blue and brown cuirass, stood dead still without any weapon drawn, or any helmet or shield or other protection, and moved only his eyes between Lydia's slow advancement and Unt sitting startled on the floor; a little shift and her braid would catch fire. Moving, Lydia tried to pose herself in between; "Wait," the Stormcloak said, "I mean no harm."  
>But Lydia jumped without warning, and hit the Stormcloak with the flat of her sword. He fell in a heap and from other, invisible doors and from upstairs, more soldiers emerged, and they were two, three, four, five, arranging themselves around Lydia, which spun around in circles, transpiration sticking dark strands on her ears and eyes. "Thane," she breathed. "I am your shield and sword."<p>

It did little as they threw hands around her mouth and their bodies on top of her to restrain her convulsive strife to shake them off her back; pinned down, supressed and bound. Unt watched their fingers curling around her jaw, and then she felt her own teeth pushed hard into the gums with a painful force, prying, and she screamed at the claws that seemed to have found their way out of her nightly dreams.

A bitter cold drop was planted on her tongue; for a moment tasting silence, and then she knew nothingness would come; at least the feeling was familiar.

* * *

><p><strong>Don't forget to wave and say hi if you skimmed this!<br>Chapter five already under construction (I doubt someone anticipates it... oh, but for the heck of it...!)**


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